4 TRADITION AND RELIGION

IT APPEARS TO BE rather difficult to arrive at an agreement on an exact and strictly accurate definition of religion and its essential elements; and etymology, which often proves valuable in such cases, affords but little help in this instance, for the indications it has to offer are extremely vague. Religion, according to its verbal derivation, is 'that which binds'; but is this to be taken in the sense of something that binds man to a superior principle, or something that binds men one to another? If we consider Greco-Roman antiquity, from which the word 'religion' came down to us, though not everything that the word stands for today, it is practically certain that the notion of religion included both the ideas we have mentioned and that the second more often than not played a preponderant part. In fact religion, or what was understood by that word at the time, was incorporated indissolubly in the body of social institutions, in which recognition of the 'gods of the city' and observance of the lawfully established forms of worship played a fundamental part, providing them with a guarantee of stability; and it was this that conferred on these institutions a genuinely traditional character. Since those times however, at any rate during the classical period, men ceased to be fully aware of the principle on which their tradition should have been based intellectually; in this may be seen one of the earliest manifestations of the metaphysical incapacity common among Westerners, a deficiency that brings a strange confusion of thought as its fatal and unquestionable consequence. Among the Greeks especially, rites and symbols inherited from more ancient and already forgotten traditions rapidly lost their original and exact meaning; the imagination of that people, who were predominantly artistic, freely expressing itself through the individual fancies of its poets, covered those symbols with an almost impenetrable veil, and that is the reason why philosophers like Plato openly declared that they did not know how to interpret the most ancient writings they possessed concerning the nature of the gods.^[1] Symbols thus degenerated into mere allegories, and through the workings of an invincible tendency toward anthropomorphic personification they turned into 'myths,' that is to say fables about which everyone could believe what he pleased, provided he continued in practice to maintain the conventional attitude prescribed by the legal ordinances.

Under these conditions hardly anything could survive except a formalism that became all the more purely external in proportion as it lost its meaning even for those who were charged to watch over its maintenance in accordance with the prescribed rules; thus religion, having forfeited its deeper significance, could not but become an exclusively social concern. This explains why a man who changed his city had at the same time to change his religion and could do so without the slightest scruple; he was expected to adopt the customs of those among whom he was about to settle, to whose laws he henceforth owed allegiance, and of these laws the established religion formed an integral part on exactly the same basis as governmental, judicial, military, or other institutions. Over and above this conception of religion as a 'social bond' among the inhabitants of the same city, another more general religion was superimposed, standing above local variations and common to all the Hellenic peoples, providing them with their only really effective and permanent connecting link; such a conception, while not corresponding to 'State religion' in the sense that those words were to take on at a much later date, already suggests an obvious relationship with the latter idea, and it was certainly destined to contribute something toward its ultimate formation.

Among the Romans there prevailed conditions similar to those found in Greece, with the difference, however, that their incomprehension of the symbolical forms they borrowed from the traditions of the Etruscans and other peoples did not arise as the result of an esthetic tendency invading all the realms of thought, even those that should have been most firmly closed to it, but rather from a complete incapacity for anything of a really intellectual order. This rooted insufficiency of the Roman mind, turned as it was almost exclusively toward practical things, is too obvious and also too generally admitted for it to be necessary to dwell on it here; Greek influence, acting upon it later on, was only able to remedy the trouble to a very slight extent. However, in Rome also, the 'gods of the city' occupied the chief position in public worship, a cult that was superimposed on the family cults that always existed alongside of it, but perhaps without being any better understood as regards their deeper significance; and these 'gods of the city', in consequence of successive extensions of their territory, ultimately became the 'gods of the empire'. It is clear that a cult such as that of the emperors, for example, could apply within the social sphere only, and we know that if Christianity was persecuted while so many other varied elements were incorporated without any difficulty in the Roman religion, it is because Christianity alone entailed, in practice as well as theoretically, a formal rejection of the 'gods of the empire', thus striking at the very root of the established institutions. This rejection would however not have been necessary if the proper scope of what were purely social rites had been clearly defined and delimited; but it proved unavoidable on account of the many and various confusions that arose between the most different domains; these confusions, born of the misunderstanding of elements contained in those rites, some of which were derived from very distant sources, conferred on the rites the character of 'superstitions', to use the word in the strict sense that we have already had occasion to give to it.

Our object in offering these comments has not been simply to show what was the conception of religion in the Greco-Roman civilization, which might in itself seem somewhat beside the point; we wished rather to show how profoundly that conception differed from the view held by present-day Western civilization, in spite of the identity of the expression used in both cases. It may be said that Christianity, or if one prefers it, the Judeo-Christian tradition, when it adopted this word 'religion' together with the Latin language from which it is borrowed, imposed an almost entirely new meaning upon it; there are also other examples of changes of meaning of this kind, and one of the most striking is to be noticed in the case of the word 'creation', to which we shall refer again later. The idea that will henceforth predominate is that of a link with a superior principle and no longer that of a social bond, though the latter notion will continue to be present to a certain extent, diminished in influence however, and reduced to a rank of secondary importance. But even now, what we have said only amounts to a first approximation; in order to determine the more exact meaning of religion according to the present-day conception of it, which is the one that we shall consider from now on under this name, it would evidently be useless to refer any more to etymology, because common usage has left it too far behind; it is only by a direct examination of what is actually in existence that any precise information may be gathered.

It must be said from the outset that most of the definitions, or rather attempts at definition, proposed for the word 'religion' suffer from the common defect of being applicable to things of markedly differing character, some of which really have nothing specifically religious about them. Thus for instance, there are certain sociologists who maintain that 'what characterizes religious phenomena is their force of obligation.^[2]' It might be pointed out that this obligatory character is far from belonging to all religious institutions in an equal degree, and that it can vary in intensity, either as regards practices and beliefs contained within the same religion or in a more general way from one religion to another; but even admitting that this feature is more or less common to all religious phenomena, it is far from being peculiar to them, and the most elementary logic teaches that a definition must fit not only 'the whole of the thing defined' but also 'nothing but that which is defined'. As a matter of fact, obligation, imposed more or less strictly by an authority or a power of some sort or other, is an element that is to be found wherever there are social institutions properly speaking; for instance, is there anything that sets itself up as more rigorously obligatory than the idea of legality? Besides, whether legislation is directly bound up with religion as in Islam, or whether it is on the contrary separate and independent of it as in the present-day European states, it still retains its character of obligation to an equal degree in either case, and it must always necessarily do so because it is an indispensable feature of any form of social organization whatsoever; but who would seriously maintain that the juridical institutions of modern Europe are imbued with a religious character? Such a suggestion is plainly absurd, and if we have perhaps given it more attention than it deserves, this is because we are now discussing theories that have acquired in certain circles an influence that is as considerable as it is unmerited. It is therefore not only in societies that are convention-ally called 'primitive'—wrongly so in our opinion—that 'all social phenomena partake of the same constraining character' in a greater or lesser degree; a piece of observation that compels our sociolo-gists, when speaking of these so-called 'primitive' societies which they are so fond of invoking as evidence (especially since it is not easily verified), to assert that 'here religion includes everything, unless one prefers to say that it is non-existent.'^[3] It is true that in the case of the second alternative, which indeed seems to us to be the right one, they hasten to add this qualification, 'if one is prepared to regard religion as a special function'; but if it is not a 'special func-tion' it is no longer religion at all.

We have not yet finished considering the fantasies of the sociolo-gists: another favorite theory of theirs consists in saying that reli-gion is essentially characterized by the presence of a ritual element; this means in other words that wherever the existence of rites of any kind can be established, it may without further question be inferred that one is for that reason in the presence of religious phenomena. A ritual element admittedly is to be met with in all religions, but this element is not sufficient by itself to characterize religion as such; in this case, as in the previous one, the suggested definition is far too wide, because there exist rites, of more than one kind, that are in no wise religious.

In the first place, there are rites that partake of a purely and exclu-sively social character, a civil character one might say. This would have been the case in the Greco-Roman civilization, were it not for the confusions we mentioned; it is actually the case in the Chinese civilization, where no such confusion has occurred, and where the ceremonies of Confucianism are in fact social rites, devoid of the slightest religious character; it is only in view of this fact that they are officially recognized, a thing that would have been inconceivable in China under any other conditions. This was well understood by the Jesuits who settled in China in the seventeenth century, and who felt no objection to taking part in these ceremonies, considering that they implied nothing incompatible with Christianity; they were certainly quite correct in holding this opinion, since Confucianism, in that it takes up a standpoint entirely outside the religious sphere and only concerns itself with those things that must normally be accepted by all members of a social body without distinction, is for that reason perfectly reconcilable with any and every religion, as well as with the absence of all religion. The present-day sociologists make exactly the same mistake as the former opponents of the Jesuits, who accused them of submitting to the practices of a religion foreign to Christianity: having observed that rites were involved, they quite naturally believed that such rites were religious in nature, like those they were familiar with in their European environment.

The Far-Eastern civilization can also provide us with an example of non-religious rites of quite another kind; Taoism in fact, which is, as we have said, a purely metaphysical doctrine, also possesses certain rites which are peculiar to it; this means that there exist rites of which the character and purpose are essentially metaphysical, however astonishing such a thing may seem to Westerners. Since we do not wish to insist on this point at the moment, we will simply add that without going so far afield as China or India, such rites are to be found in certain branches of Islam, though it must be admitted that the Islamic tradition is almost as much a closed book to Europeans as all the rest of the East, largely by their own fault. After all, the sociologists might still be forgiven for being deceived about things that are quite strange to them, and they might with some show of reason believe that all rites are religious in their essence, if the Western world itself, about which they ought to be better informed, really had no other examples to offer them except rites of that type; but though we do not propose to investigate their real nature here, it is permissible to ask whether the Masonic rites, for instance, partake of a religious character in any degree whatsoever, even though they are quite unmistakably rites?

While considering this subject, we will take the opportunity of pointing out how the total absence of the religious point of view among the Chinese may have been the occasion of another misunderstanding, which is the converse of the preceding one, and which is due in this case to a reciprocal incomprehension on the part of the Chinese themselves. A man of China, who feels a great and, so to speak, natural respect for whatever belongs to the traditional order, is always ready, if transported into a foreign environment, to adopt the forms that will seem to him to constitute its tradition; now since in the West religion alone possesses this character he may thus be led to adopt it, but in a manner that is quite superficial and temporary. Returning to his native country, which he has never forsaken irrevocably, the 'solidarity of the race' being too powerful an influence to allow him to do so, that same man will cease to trouble his head in the very least about the religion the customs which he had provisionally followed; the reason being that this religion, which is a religion to others, could never have been conceived of by him in this fashion, since the religious viewpoint is foreign to his mentality; moreover, since he will never have come across anything in the West in the least degree metaphysical in character, religion is bound to appear to him as the more or less exact equivalent of a purely social tradition on the Confucian model. Europeans would thus be quite mistaken in taxing his attitude with hypocrisy, as sometimes happens; for the Chinese it is simply a matter of courtesy, for politeness, as they conceive it, demands from a man that he should conform as far as possible to the customs of the country in which he is living, and the seventeenth-century Jesuits were perfectly in order when they took rank in the official hierarchy of the literati during their sojourn in China, and offered to the Ancestors and Sages the ritual honors that are their due.

In the same order of ideas, there is a further interesting fact to be noted in the case of Japan, where Shinto in some measure can claim the same character and plays the same part as Confucianism in China; although it possesses other aspects that are less clearly defined, it is pre-eminently a ceremonial institution of the State, and its ministers, who are in no wise 'priests', are quite at liberty to follow any religion they please or to follow none at all. We recall a passage in a manual of religious history which contained the strange comment that 'in Japan as in China, faith in the doctrines of one religion does not in any way exclude faith in the doctrines of another'^[4]; in reality, different doctrines can only be compatible with each other on condition that they do not cover the same ground, which in fact applies in this case, and this should be enough to prove that here there can be no question of religion. Indeed, apart from foreign importations that can never have had a very deep or extended influence, the religious point of view is as unknown to the Japanese as to the Chinese; in fact this is one of the few traits in common to be observed in the characters of these two peoples.

So far, we have only dealt with the negative aspects of our original question, for we have chiefly pointed out the inadequacy of certain definitions, an inadequacy that even involves downright falsity; but now we must contribute, if not strictly speaking a definition, at least a positive conception of what really constitutes religion. It may be said that religion essentially entails the conjunction of three elements belonging to different orders, a dogma, a moral law, and a cult or form of worship; wherever one or another of these elements happens to be wanting, there can no longer be any question of religion in the proper sense of the word. We will add forthwith that the first element forms the intellectual part of religion, the second its social portion, while the third, which is the ritual element, participates in both these functions; but this calls for further explanation.

The word 'dogma' applies properly speaking to a religious doctrine; without at present going further into the special characteristics of such a doctrine, we can say that though it is obviously intellectual as regards its profounder meaning, it does not belong to the purely intellectual order, for if it did so, it would not be religious but metaphysical. It follows, then, that this doctrine, in taking on the special form that is adapted to its point of view, must undergo the influence of extra-intellectual elements, for the most part of a sentimental order; the very word 'beliefs' which is commonly used to denote religious conceptions clearly reveals this character, for it is an elementary psychological observation that belief, taken in its most exact sense and insofar as it is opposed to certitude—which is an entirely intellectual condition—is a phenomenon wherein sentiment plays an essential part; it amounts to a kind of inclination toward or sympathy for an idea, which moreover necessarily supposes that this idea is itself conceived with a more or less pronounced tinge of sentiment. The same sentimental factor, though a secondary one in the doctrine, becomes preponderant, and even overwhelmingly so, in morals, the dependence of which upon dogma considered as their principle is largely a theoretical assertion; this moral aspect of religion, the justification of which can only be purely social, might be looked upon as a kind of legislation, the only kind that remains within the province of religion once the civil institutions have broken loose from it.

Lastly, the rites, which together constitute the cult or form of worship, possess an intellectual character insofar as they are looked upon as a symbolic and sensible expression of the doctrine, and a social character when considered as 'practices' requiring the participation of all the members of the religious community in a manner that can be more or less binding. The name 'cult' ought by rights to be reserved for religious rites only; in actual practice, however, it is fairly often used—though this is rather in the nature of an abuse—to denote other rites, for example purely social rites, as when people speak of the 'cult of ancestors' in China. It should be observed that in a religion where the social and sentimental elements preponderate over the intellectual, both the dogma and the cult have their share reduced more and more, so that a religion of this kind tends to degenerate into 'moralism' pure and simple, as is well exemplified in the case of Protestantism; at the extreme limit, almost reached at the present day by a certain 'liberal Protestantism', what remains is no longer a religion at all, since it has preserved only one of the essential factors; it amounts simply to a kind of specialized philosophic thought. It should in fact be pointed out that morals may be conceived in two quite different ways: according to the religious mode, when they are attached to dogma as their principle and are subordinated to it, or else in the philosophic mode, when they are treated as independent; we shall return later to this second form.

It will now be understood why we said previously that the term 'religion' is difficult to apply strictly outside the group formed by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which goes to prove the specifically Jewish origin of the idea that the word now expresses. The reason is that in no other case are the three elements that we have just described found conjoined in one and the same traditional conception; thus in China the intellectual and the social points of view are to be found, being represented moreover by two distinct bodies of tradition, while the moral point of view is totally absent, even in the social tradition. Likewise in India, it is that same moral point of view that is wanting; if legislation here is not religious as in Islam, it is because it is entirely free from the sentimental element that can alone bestow on it the special character of a code of morals; as for the doctrine, this is purely intellectual, that is to say metaphysical, without the least trace of the sentimental form that would be necessary in order to confer on it the character of a religious dogma, and without which the attachment of a moral code to a doctrinal principle would be quite inconceivable.

Thus it may be seen that the moral point of view, as well as the religious point of view, both essentially imply a certain element of sentimentality, which is highly developed among Westerners at the expense of intellectuality. We are therefore concerned with something that is in reality peculiar to Westerners, with whom the Muslims should also be associated, but again with the great difference that in their case morals, kept in the secondary place that belongs to them, have never come to be looked upon as existing for their own sake. This is true even apart from the extra-religious aspect of the Islamic doctrine; the Islamic mental outlook is incapable of accepting the notion of an 'autonomous morality', that is to say a philosophical morality, an idea which formerly arose among the Greeks and Romans, and which has once again become widely accepted in the West at the present time.

One last remark is called for here: we in no wise admit the opinion held by the sociologists that religion is purely and simply a social fact; we merely say that it contains a constituent element belonging to the social order, which is clearly not the same thing at all, since this element is normally secondary in relation to the doctrine, belonging as this does to quite a different order; and thus religion, though social on the one side, is at the same time something more. Moreover, in practice, there are cases where all that pertains to the social order is bound up with and, as it were, dependent upon religion; such is the case in Islam, as we have already had occasion to explain, and also in Judaism, where legislation is no less essentially religious, but with this special feature that it only applies to a particular people; the same is equally true of a conception of Christianity that might be called 'integral' and that formerly found effective realization.

The sociological opinion only corresponds to the present state of Europe, and even then only by leaving out of account all doctrinal considerations, which however have really only lost their primary importance among the Protestant nations; strange to say, this theory has been used to justify the conception of a 'State religion', that is to say of a religion that has become more or less completely a department of the State, and which as such is in great danger of being turned into a political instrument. This is a conception that in some ways brings us back to Greco-Roman religion, according to the description of it we have already given. Such an idea is evidently diametrically opposed to that of 'Christendom': the latter, being anterior to the formation of nations, could neither continue to exist nor be re-established after they had once been constituted, except on condition of being essentially 'supra-national'; on the other hand, State religion is always looked upon in fact, if not by right, as national, whether it be entirely independent or whether it recognizes an attachment to other similar institutions by a sort of federal bond, which in any case only leaves to the superior and central authority an influence considerably reduced. The first of these two conceptions, that of 'Christendom', is essentially identified with Catholicism, in the etymological sense of the word; the second conception, that of a 'State religion', finds its logical expression, as the case may be, either in a Gallicanism after the style of Louis XIV, or in Anglicanism and in certain forms of the Protestant religion, which in general does not seem to find such a degradation distasteful. In conclusion, it may be added that of these two Western ways of conceiving religion, the first one alone, taking the special features pertaining to the religious mode into account, is capable of fulfilling the conditions of a real tradition, as the Eastern mind has always conceived it.